December 2011

Published on December 23, 2011

Just Released…

The Supply of and Demand for Medical Assistants in New York City

The Center recently completed a study of medical assistants in New York City. The study included an assessment of medical assistant supply, production, and demand for their services. The study found that medical assistants are an integral part of ambulatory care treatment teams, particularly in community health centers. Medical assistants tend to be racially and ethnically diverse and their diversity is viewed as an asset by providers serving diverse populations. Variation in the length and focus of medical assisting education programs results in differences in the capabilities of program graduates.

The Center conducts an annual survey of all physicians completing residency training or fellowship programs in New York. Based on analysis of these data, this report profiles trends in demand for new physicians in 35 specialties from 2005-2010. Specialties experiencing the strongest demand were urology, otolaryngology, family medicine, gastroenterology, dermatology, general anesthesiology, and emergency medicine, while the specialties experiencing the weakest demand were cardio-thoracic surgery, plastic surgery, nephrology, infectious disease, pathology, and ophthalmology. View the full report: http://www.chwsny.org/archive/uploads/2012/07/extrends2011.pdf.

Oral Health in New Hampshire: A Chartbook for the New Hampshire Oral Health Access Strategy Workgroup

The Center, with support from the Pew Center on the States, prepared briefing materials to inform the deliberations of the New Hampshire Oral Health Access Strategy Workgroup, which had been charged with identifying workforce solutions for more effective dental service delivery for underserved populations across the state. The chartbook was based on an analysis of a wide array of secondary data sources and included information about the supply and distribution of oral health professionals in the state as well as information about gaps in access to oral health services. Download the chartbook here: http://www.chwsny.org/archive/uploads/2012/07/nhoralhealth2011.pdf.

Certified Asthma Educators in New York

The Center conducted a study of certified asthma educators (AE-Cs) in New York. The goals of the project were to learn about the characteristics of AE-Cs and the patients they serve, their employment patterns, and facilitators and barriers to increasing the supply of AE-Cs in the state. The study included stakeholder interviews, a survey of all AE-Cs in New York, and a survey of providers of asthma education services. The study found that there is a small number of AE-Cs in the state and they are not well-distributed. Also, AE-Cs provide a very small amount of the asthma education services in New York.

Using data from the Center’s Resident Exit Survey, practice trends for newly-trained primary care physicians who completed training in New York were examined. The Center found that in-state retention of newly-trained primary care physicians is declining and most of the general internal medicine physicians who remain in New York to practice are working in inpatient settings, not community-based settings. Download the the research brief here: http://www.chwsny.org/archive/uploads/2012/07/newpcmds2011.pdf.

Publications…

Robert Martiniano, Sandra McGinnis, and Jean Moore authored an article that identifies national data sources available to conduct nursing workforce research and assesses the strengths and limitations of each. The potential for using state-level data for nursing workforce research is also explored. The authors emphasize the importance of obtaining accurate and detailed RN data to use in forecasting studies and to quantify current RN supply and demand, including the number of active RNs, their demographics, education level, practice characteristics, and work location(s).

Martiniano R, McGinnis S, and Moore J. Understanding the Supply and Distribution of Registered Nurses: Where are the Data and What Can They Tell Us? Annual Review of Nursing Research, Volume 28, 2010, (43-61).

An article, titled Electronic health record adoption and health information exchange among hospitals in New York State, was published in the September 2011 online issue of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. The paper was authored by Erika Abramson, Sandra McGinnis, Alison Edwards, Dayna Maniccia, Jean Moore, and Rainu Kaushal and examined electronic health record (EHR) adoption and health information exchange (HIE) activities in New York’s hospitals. The researchers found that in 2009, nearly 16% of hospitals had adopted an EHR and that over 23% were participating in HIE. Few hospitals, however, had fully implemented all functionalities related to meaningful use. Adoption rates were higher in public than private hospitals and there was substantial regional variation in EHR adoption and HIE.

Jean Moore, director of the Center, attended the third meeting of the Health Workforce Information Reference Group convened by the World Health Organization and held in Nairobi, Kenya, December 5-6, 2011. She made a presentation, HRH Data Use for Determining Primary Care Shortage Areas: The New York Experience, which described how data collected through state re-registration surveys are used to identify and designate areas within the state that have shortages of primary care providers.

Tell us what you think…

We’d like to hear from you. Please give us feedback on our Web site or on any of the reports or information we have posted to it. E-mail us at chws@health.state.ny.us.